ACM Ada Letters

ACM Ada Letters

[Hyman Rosen]

I just got my latest issue of Ada Letters. I'm pretty
disappointed with the typography errors in many articles.
One article had large gaps of whitespace inside words.
Another had funny accented characters attached to words.
And this isn't the first time I've seen things like that.
I know that articles are formatted by the submitters,
but shouldn't the editor just bounce malformed ones?

These problems make the publication seem amateurish,
and may be another symptom of The Death of Ada(tm).

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Marin David Condic]

The paper copy? The on-line copy looks fine. In self-defense, the 
articles are not formatted by the submitters - you hand it over in .DOC 
format and the editors tinker with it from there. They may have had some 
problem between that and getting it to the printer. Look at the stuff at 
the SIGAda web site and see if thats any better.

MDC


Hyman Rosen wrote:
> I just got my latest issue of Ada Letters. I'm pretty
> disappointed with the typography errors in many articles.
> One article had large gaps of whitespace inside words.
> Another had funny accented characters attached to words.
> And this isn't the first time I've seen things like that.
> I know that articles are formatted by the submitters,
> but shouldn't the editor just bounce malformed ones?
> 
> These problems make the publication seem amateurish,
> and may be another symptom of The Death of Ada(tm).
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

     "All reformers, however strict their social conscience,
      live in houses just as big as they can pay for."

          --Logan Pearsall Smith
======================================================================

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Hyman Rosen]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> The paper copy? The on-line copy looks fine. In self-defense, the 
> articles are not formatted by the submitters - you hand it over in .DOC 
> format and the editors tinker with it from there. They may have had some 
> problem between that and getting it to the printer. Look at the stuff at 
> the SIGAda web site and see if thats any better.

Yeah, it's the paper copy that's bad. It's fine on the SIGAda site.
But the paper copy is the one I read, and it's really annoying to have
it malformed. Someone's got to get on the ball. After all, I'm paying
for it!

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Preben Randhol]

On 2003-10-10, Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote:
> The paper copy? The on-line copy looks fine. In self-defense, the 
> articles are not formatted by the submitters - you hand it over in .DOC 
> format and the editors tinker with it from there. They may have had some 
> problem between that and getting it to the printer. Look at the stuff at 
> the SIGAda web site and see if thats any better.

Why do one in 2003 not use something better than DOC format?

Preben

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Marin David Condic]

Personally, I have decided to switch to OpenOffice - hopefully 
encouraging a trend that will free us from the stranglehold of Micro$oft 
and their plans to Enguilf & Devour everything in sight by creating de 
facto standards that they control and then, once they have the 
vise-grips on your testicles, they squeeze to control every aspect of 
your life. (Forgive us our paranoia, for we know what we do! ;-)

But be that as it may, the Ada Letters editors want .DOC or .PDF files 
and, since my article included nothing more than simple text with simple 
formatting and just a couple of common fonts, .DOC is not really a 
problem. Besides, OpenOffice will save to .DOC format.

MDC

Preben Randhol wrote:
> 
> 
> Why do one in 2003 not use something better than DOC format?
> 
> Preben


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

     "All reformers, however strict their social conscience,
      live in houses just as big as they can pay for."

          --Logan Pearsall Smith
======================================================================

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Preben Randhol]

On 2003-10-10, Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote:
> But be that as it may, the Ada Letters editors want .DOC or .PDF files 
> and, since my article included nothing more than simple text with simple 
> formatting and just a couple of common fonts, .DOC is not really a 
> problem. Besides, OpenOffice will save to .DOC format.

And PDF :-) 

Preben

RE: ACM Ada Letters

[Beard, Frank Randolph CIV]

I with ya Marin!  I've been using OpenOffice for a while now
for both documents and spreadsheets.  Only one other person
in my office has joined me.  The rest are using Micro$oft.
But, of course, it reads and writes Micro$oft formats without
a problem (so far).

Frank

-----Original Message-----
From: Marin David Condic 

Personally, I have decided to switch to OpenOffice ...
[snip]

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Stephen Leake]

Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes:

> Marin David Condic wrote:
> > The paper copy? The on-line copy looks fine. In self-defense, the
> > articles are not formatted by the submitters - you hand it over in
> > .DOC format and the editors tinker with it from there. They may have
> > had some problem between that and getting it to the printer. Look at
> > the stuff at the SIGAda web site and see if thats any better.
> 
> Yeah, it's the paper copy that's bad. It's fine on the SIGAda site.
> But the paper copy is the one I read, and it's really annoying to have
> it malformed. Someone's got to get on the ball. After all, I'm paying
> for it!

I noticed the same problem. I suggest we _all_ write a letter to the
editor, asking them to fix the problem.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Stephen Leake]

Preben Randhol <randhol+valid_for_reply_from_news@pvv.org> writes:

> On 2003-10-10, Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote:
> > But be that as it may, the Ada Letters editors want .DOC or .PDF files 
> > and, since my article included nothing more than simple text with simple 
> > formatting and just a couple of common fonts, .DOC is not really a 
> > problem. Besides, OpenOffice will save to .DOC format.
> 
> And PDF :-) 

I'm not clear that PDF would solve the problem of the printer having a
different character set. It would be interesting to find out.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Preben Randhol]

On 2003-10-10, Stephen Leake <Stephe.Leake@nasa.gov> wrote:
>
> I'm not clear that PDF would solve the problem of the printer having a
> different character set. It would be interesting to find out.

I don't know what was the problem, but as Ada Letters require .DOC or
.PDF I just pointed out that it openoffice makes pdf files for you. :-)

Preben

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Georg Bauhaus]

Stephen Leake <Stephe.Leake@nasa.gov> wrote:
: 
: I'm not clear that PDF would solve the problem of the printer having a
: different character set. It would be interesting to find out.

It should sove the problem, because you can and should store fonts with
encodings in PDF files.  However, OpenOffice's PDF generator seems
not yet troublefree, unfortunately. Ventura 10 does produce good PDF,
in various flavours, for Web, printing, ..., not using either of
Windows' or Adobe's drivers, afaikt.

If you have Adobe's Distiller, you can control which fonts will
be stored in the PDF file, subsetted or not. (Subsetting is a font
licensing issue.)
pdfTeX, xmltex, RenderX's XEP, ... are good PDF generators, too.
FOP is not bad.
Lout has an option to produce PDF instead of PostScript files.

The printing industry seems to have establish a set of rules for
using PDF in print, named PDF/X.

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Georg Bauhaus]

Georg Bauhaus <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> wrote:
: Stephen Leake <Stephe.Leake@nasa.gov> wrote:
: : 
: : I'm not clear that PDF would solve the problem of the printer having a
: : different character set. It would be interesting to find out.
: 
: It should sove the problem,

and I should add that if you own a recent Mac computer with Mac OS X,
you get PDF printing for free. (Just checked with a simple text editting
tool called TextEdit. This is all plausible because Mac graphics is
modelled around PDF internally, reusing NextStep, as it seems.)



Georg

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Marin David Condic]

Great! The seeds of Revolution have been planted! Let's all work in that 
garden and start using OpenOffice to achieve the overthrow of The Evil 
Empire!!!

MDC


Beard, Frank Randolph CIV wrote:
> I with ya Marin!  I've been using OpenOffice for a while now
> for both documents and spreadsheets.  Only one other person
> in my office has joined me.  The rest are using Micro$oft.
> But, of course, it reads and writes Micro$oft formats without
> a problem (so far).
> 
> Frank

-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

     "All reformers, however strict their social conscience,
      live in houses just as big as they can pay for."

          --Logan Pearsall Smith
======================================================================

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Freejack]

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 11:02:10 -0400, Marin David Condic wrote:

> Great! The seeds of Revolution have been planted! Let's all work in that
> garden and start using OpenOffice to achieve the overthrow of The Evil
> Empire!!!
> 
> MDC

Indeed. And lets squash some bugs in OpenOffice in our spare time, eh?

In fact, let's each of us find and fix one bug. Just one. As I know most
of us are busy, one should be enough. Heh.
It maybe not be written in Ada, but parts of it could be eh?

Just a thought.

Freejack

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Warren W. Gay VE3WWG]

Hyman Rosen wrote:
> Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
>> The paper copy? The on-line copy looks fine. In self-defense, the 
>> articles are not formatted by the submitters - you hand it over in 
>> .DOC format and the editors tinker with it from there. They may have 
>> had some problem between that and getting it to the printer. Look at 
>> the stuff at the SIGAda web site and see if thats any better.
> 
> Yeah, it's the paper copy that's bad. It's fine on the SIGAda site.
> But the paper copy is the one I read, and it's really annoying to have
> it malformed. Someone's got to get on the ball. After all, I'm paying
> for it!

The first few pages were a little rough going. Towards the end,
I almost got to feeling that it was normal formatting ;-)
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Warren W. Gay VE3WWG]

Preben Randhol wrote:

> On 2003-10-10, Stephen Leake <Stephe.Leake@nasa.gov> wrote:
> 
>>I'm not clear that PDF would solve the problem of the printer having a
>>different character set. It would be interesting to find out.
> 
> I don't know what was the problem, but as Ada Letters require .DOC or
> ..PDF I just pointed out that it openoffice makes pdf files for you. :-)
> 
> Preben

What is disappointing is that _they_ either did not notice, or
worse, they just pushed it through like that. I don't know how
they could have not noticed it, but..
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Nick Roberts]

Freejack wrote:

> Indeed. And lets squash some bugs in OpenOffice in our spare time, eh?

Well, I use OpenOffice as well. I click on the icon to start it up, then go 
and make a cup of tea and feed the cat, and sometimes when I come back it's 
nearly finished loading.

;-)

I'm sorry, but I cannot help feeling that OO doesn't just need a few bugs 
squashing; it needs redesigning and rewriting (in Ada?). I thought 
StarOffice was great, but as soon as Sun have something to do with a piece 
of software, you just know it's going to go the way of the Dodo.

I use OpenOffice only when nothing else will do.

-- 
Nick Roberts

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[chris]

Nick Roberts wrote:

> Well, I use OpenOffice as well. I click on the icon to start it up, then 
> go and make a cup of tea and feed the cat, and sometimes when I come 
> back it's nearly finished loading.
> 
> ;-)

Must be Windows.  On Linux I have noticed speed improvements in releases 
except 1.1 proper, which was a little slower than 1.1rc1.


> I'm sorry, but I cannot help feeling that OO doesn't just need a few 
> bugs squashing; it needs redesigning and rewriting (in Ada?). 

Perhaps but what's the language got to do with anything?

 > I thought
> StarOffice was great, but as soon as Sun have something to do with a 
> piece of software, you just know it's going to go the way of the Dodo.

Why?  StarOffice is made by Sun... :?

> I use OpenOffice only when nothing else will do.

Agreed.  Sometimes even Latex can fail ;)

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Marin David Condic]

Well, there's a useful product that might spur some interest in Ada. 
Something similar to Open Office (which works fine for me - maybe it 
needs the next generation of hardware. That's part of the conspiracy 
between the hardware vendors and the software vendors.) would make a 
good product. But you're clearly talking about something way-big to build.

MDC

Nick Roberts wrote:
> 
> Well, I use OpenOffice as well. I click on the icon to start it up, then 
> go and make a cup of tea and feed the cat, and sometimes when I come 
> back it's nearly finished loading.
> 
> ;-)
> 
> I'm sorry, but I cannot help feeling that OO doesn't just need a few 
> bugs squashing; it needs redesigning and rewriting (in Ada?). I thought 
> StarOffice was great, but as soon as Sun have something to do with a 
> piece of software, you just know it's going to go the way of the Dodo.
> 
> I use OpenOffice only when nothing else will do.
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "So if I understand 'The Matrix Reloaded' correctly, the Matrix is
     basically a Microsoft operating system - it runs for a while and
     then crashes and reboots. By design, no less. Neo is just a
     memory leak that's too hard to fix, so they left him in... The
     users don't complain because they're packed in slush and kept
     sedated"

         --  Marin D. Condic
======================================================================

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Pat Rogers]

> Hyman Rosen wrote:
>> Marin David Condic wrote:
>>
>>> The paper copy? The on-line copy looks fine. In self-defense, the
>>> articles are not formatted by the submitters - you hand it over in
>>> .DOC format and the editors tinker with it from there. They may
have
>>> had some problem between that and getting it to the printer. Look
at
>>> the stuff at the SIGAda web site and see if thats any better.
>>
>> Yeah, it's the paper copy that's bad. It's fine on the SIGAda site.
>> But the paper copy is the one I read, and it's really annoying to
>> have it malformed. Someone's got to get on the ball. After all, I'm
>> paying for it!

It is indeed very strange.

By the way, Word is only preferred in the sense that I cannot handle
LaTex or FrameMaker or something like that.  People typically want to
send their submissions in the format of the tool that produced the
document itself.  Also, I can make trivial changes for people if they
send their submissions in Word.  As it mentions in the Guidelines for
Authors, PDF is perfectly acceptable, as is Postscript.

--
Pat Rogers
Technical Editor, Ada Letters
progers@classwide.com

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Preben Randhol]

On 2003-11-05, Pat Rogers <progers@classwide.com> wrote:
> By the way, Word is only preferred in the sense that I cannot handle
> LaTex or FrameMaker or something like that.  People typically want to
> send their submissions in the format of the tool that produced the
> document itself.  Also, I can make trivial changes for people if they
> send their submissions in Word.  As it mentions in the Guidelines for
> Authors, PDF is perfectly acceptable, as is Postscript.

Why can't you handle LaTeX? LaTeX produces both PS and PDF.

Preben
-- 
"Saving keystrokes is the job of the text editor, not the programming
 language."

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Stephen Leake]

Preben Randhol <randhol+valid_for_reply_from_news@pvv.org> writes:

> On 2003-11-05, Pat Rogers <progers@classwide.com> wrote:
> > By the way, Word is only preferred in the sense that I cannot handle
> > LaTex or FrameMaker or something like that.  People typically want to
> > send their submissions in the format of the tool that produced the
> > document itself.  Also, I can make trivial changes for people if they
> > send their submissions in Word.  As it mentions in the Guidelines for
> > Authors, PDF is perfectly acceptable, as is Postscript.
> 
> Why can't you handle LaTeX? LaTeX produces both PS and PDF.

LaTeX can be complex to install. There is a nice Windows installer,
but if an author uses a package that Pat doesn't happen to have
installed, it's a problem.

If you want to use LaTeX, just create the PDF yourself.

That's what PDF is for; document exchange.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Preben Randhol]

On 2003-11-06, Stephen Leake <Stephe.Leake@nasa.gov> wrote:
>
> LaTeX can be complex to install. There is a nice Windows installer,
> but if an author uses a package that Pat doesn't happen to have
> installed, it's a problem.

Well the same problem arises if one use a font in word that Pat doesn't
have. 

> If you want to use LaTeX, just create the PDF yourself.

Wasn't that what I said?

-- 
"Saving keystrokes is the job of the text editor, not the programming
 language."

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Pat Rogers]

Stephen Leake wrote:
[snip]
> If you want to use LaTeX, just create the PDF yourself.

Exactly right.

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Pat Rogers]

Preben Randhol wrote:
> On 2003-11-05, Pat Rogers <progers@classwide.com> wrote:
>> By the way, Word is only preferred in the sense that I cannot
handle
>> LaTex or FrameMaker or something like that.  People typically want
to
>> send their submissions in the format of the tool that produced the
>> document itself.  Also, I can make trivial changes for people if
they
>> send their submissions in Word.  As it mentions in the Guidelines
for
>> Authors, PDF is perfectly acceptable, as is Postscript.
>
> Why can't you handle LaTeX? LaTeX produces both PS and PDF.

My use of "handle" above is misleading -- I just don't have LaTex or
FrameMaker (etc) installed.

PDF is fine but not everyone can produce it.

Postscript is convenient for people because just about anything can
select a postscript printer and capture the output to a file.  I can
then convert the postscript to PDF myself.

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Stephen Leake]

Preben Randhol <randhol+valid_for_reply_from_news@pvv.org> writes:

> On 2003-11-06, Stephen Leake <Stephe.Leake@nasa.gov> wrote:
> >
> > LaTeX can be complex to install. There is a nice Windows installer,
> > but if an author uses a package that Pat doesn't happen to have
> > installed, it's a problem.
> 
> Well the same problem arises if one use a font in word that Pat doesn't
> have. 

yes, that's true. And again, using PDF is the solution.

> > If you want to use LaTeX, just create the PDF yourself.
> 
> Wasn't that what I said?

Hmm. Pat (the editor of  ACM SigAda newsletter) said _he_ couldn't
handle LaTeX, meaning he cannot accept submissions in LaTeX format.

I'm suggesting that if authors want to use LaTeX, that's no problem;
they just generate PDF from it, and send the PDF to Pat.

I thought you were asking Pat why _he_ couldn't handle LaTeX. I think
it is unreasonable to ask an editor to accept LaTeX.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Wes Groleau]

Preben Randhol wrote:
> On 2003-11-06, Stephen Leake <Stephe.Leake@nasa.gov> wrote:
> 
>>LaTeX can be complex to install. There is a nice Windows installer,
>>but if an author uses a package that Pat doesn't happen to have
>>installed, it's a problem.
> 
> Well the same problem arises if one use a font in word that Pat doesn't
> have. 

Ah, but Word automatically substitutes another font,
and Pat can easily change it if it selects an ugly one.

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau/Wes

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Marin David Condic]

I don't think it would be at all unreasonable for a journal to ask 
authors to use some specific, common fonts. What's wrong with limiting 
things to Times New Roman and Arial? Just about everyone can handle that 
and it would get the job done. Also, it makes for a more consistent 
looking journal.

Its also not unreasonable to restrict submissions to some small set of 
document formats. After all, while we all have our favorites, you can't 
expect an editor to have every possible file format supported for *your* 
convenience. Even non-Word processors can usually make a .DOC and .PDF 
is pretty common too. That seems like a reasonable restriction.

MDC


Wes Groleau wrote:
> 
> 
> Ah, but Word automatically substitutes another font,
> and Pat can easily change it if it selects an ugly one.
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "So if I understand 'The Matrix Reloaded' correctly, the Matrix is
     basically a Microsoft operating system - it runs for a while and
     then crashes and reboots. By design, no less. Neo is just a
     memory leak that's too hard to fix, so they left him in... The
     users don't complain because they're packed in slush and kept
     sedated"

         --  Marin D. Condic
======================================================================

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Marius Amado Alves]

On Fri, 2003-11-07 at 12:53, Marin David Condic wrote:
> I don't think it would be at all unreasonable for a journal to ask 
> authors to use some specific, common fonts. What's wrong with limiting 
> things to Times New Roman and Arial?

What's wrong is that these fonts are not "common". For example
OpenOffice does not have them. So please relax the limitation to

 Variable size serif font resembling Times, Time New Roman
 Variable size sans serif font resembling Helvetica, Arial

to which I would add

 Fixed size font resembling Courier, Courier New

for source code.

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Marin David Condic]

O.K., but that still only means the editors of a journal really need to 
support only a small handful of fonts. Times (and its variants for 
OpenOffice, etc.) Arial/Helvetica (same variants) and Courier (same 
variants). One ought to be able to load some fonts that are supported 
for OpenOffice and perhaps some other word processors that don't come 
shipped with these. I have a pile of fonts that came with my PC and I 
loaded up a bunch more. Most of the word processing things that run on 
my PC seem to be able to find that directory and recognize these fonts. 
Is it different in the Unix/Linux world?

When I started using OpenOffice it managed to recognize all my usual PC 
fonts, including Times New Roman and Arial (and a bunch of wierd ones 
obtained as freebies from the Internet) so its not impossible to make it 
work. I don't know what it does in Unix/Linux platforms, but I've got to 
believe there are equivalents for Unix/Linux that would be good 
substitutes. So you pick your platform, get a set of acceptable fonts 
loaded on it and say "This is what I can work with - make sure your 
submissions comply."

BTW, I don't much like Courier & would rather use Lucida Console, but 
for the sake of commonality, I'd cave in. :-)

As for OpenOffice? I like that a lot since it disconnects me from the 
Microsoft/Borg. Perhaps if more journals, etc., were to start accepting 
.SXW files we'd get The Revolution started. ;-)

MDC

Marius Amado Alves wrote:
> 
> 
> What's wrong is that these fonts are not "common". For example
> OpenOffice does not have them. So please relax the limitation to
> 
>  Variable size serif font resembling Times, Time New Roman
>  Variable size sans serif font resembling Helvetica, Arial
> 
> to which I would add
> 
>  Fixed size font resembling Courier, Courier New
> 
> for source code.
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "So if I understand 'The Matrix Reloaded' correctly, the Matrix is
     basically a Microsoft operating system - it runs for a while and
     then crashes and reboots. By design, no less. Neo is just a
     memory leak that's too hard to fix, so they left him in... The
     users don't complain because they're packed in slush and kept
     sedated"

         --  Marin D. Condic
======================================================================

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Pat Rogers]

Marin David Condic wrote:
[snip]
> BTW, I don't much like Courier & would rather use Lucida Console,
but
> for the sake of commonality, I'd cave in. :-)

My personal favorite is Andale Mono.

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Robert A Duff]

Marius Amado Alves <amado.alves@netcabo.pt> writes:

> ...to which I would add
> 
>  Fixed size font resembling Courier, Courier New
> 
> for source code.

Why do we write and read source code in fixed-width fonts?
I usually do, and most folks do.
But variable width is certainly more readable.

For Russ: by "readable", I mean "easier to read".
Please don't call me an "idiot" for not being *able* to read
fixed-width fonts -- I just find variable-width fonts easier to read.

;-) ;-)

- Bob

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Pat Rogers]

> Why do we write and read source code in fixed-width fonts?
> I usually do, and most folks do.
> But variable width is certainly more readable.

I find it easier to format the code (beyond simple indentation, where
tabs suffice). For example, it is easy to format the formal parameters
in a subprogram or entry specification using fixed-width typefaces.  I
line up the colons, the modes and the names of the types.  Not fun
with a variable-width typeface.

In the approximately 1000 slides for my Ada courses I used a
variable-width typeface on the slides. That made it easy to fit text
on the slide that otherwise would have been too wide, among other
advantages, but it is a real pain to format.  Change the point-size
and you have to reformat it all.

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Marius Amado Alves]

On Fri, 2003-11-07 at 21:11, Robert A Duff wrote:
> Why do we write and read source code in fixed-width fonts?

To align without tabs.

Example : array (Index) of Triple :=
  ((  1,    0, 1000),
   ( 12, 1000,  120),
   (123, 1200,   99));

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Wes Groleau]

Marin David Condic wrote:

 > Wes Groleau wrote:
 >
 >> Ah, but Word automatically substitutes another font,
 >> and Pat can easily change it if it selects an ugly one.
 >
> I don't think it would be at all unreasonable for a journal to ask 
> authors to use some specific, common fonts. What's wrong with limiting 

No, it's perfectly reasonable.  I was merely illustrating
that one person's suggested reason (might use a font Pat
doesn't have) is not a very good reason for not using Word.

A _good_ reason might be "it comes from Microsoft."  :-)

-- 
Wes Groleau

  Guidelines for judging others:

  1. Don't attribute to malice that which
     can be adequately explained by stupidity.

  2. Don't attribute to stupidity that which
     can be adequately explained by ignorance.

  3. Don't attribute to ignorance that which
     can be adequately explained by misunderstanding.

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Marin David Condic]

Well, it might or might not be more readable. Some of that is subjective 
judgement. I like fixed fonts because it allows me to make things line 
up in the source code and that often contributes (in my mind - maybe not 
others) to better readability. Such as aligning parameter lists so 
everything is in columns or a series of assignment statements with all 
the ":=" lined up, etc. Sometimes it helps with identifiers as well if 
they have fixed size fonts to make parts of the names align. Some of 
that might just be personal taste or an over-organized mind. (Can you 
say "Obsessive-Compulsive"? I *like* the way you say that!)

How would you propose to get that capability with proportional fonts in 
some manner that still allowed the source to be compilable? (I might 
imagine a word processor inserting tab stops and other formatting info 
into the code, but that's not part of the Ada standard and there isn't 
any guaranteed way to be sure it would be represented the same way by 
more than one editor.) That's why sometimes just plain old ASCII with 
proportional font representation is the best way to go - its simple, 
easy to implement, consistent across numerous apps, etc., and it lets 
you control format fairly well.

MDC


Robert A Duff wrote:
> 
> Why do we write and read source code in fixed-width fonts?
> I usually do, and most folks do.
> But variable width is certainly more readable.



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======================================================================
Marin David Condic
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======================================================================

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Marin David Condic]

Amen, brother! Even if OpenOffice isn't perfect, I can feel reasonably 
certain that nobody is going to suddenly come out with a file format for 
the next generation product that is going to a) be incompatible with 
what I've already built or b) require I spend extra money to convert 
things or to be compatible with what other people are using or C) have 
some sort of Engulf & Devour scheme built in to make sure I'm locked in 
or others have to get locked in or all sorts of information has to be 
accessible to The Borg or some other invasion of my rights takes place.

It might not be a bad idea to make some Ada tools that work off of 
OpenOffice file formats. It would let Ada play in that arena and Ada 
would get the benefits of complimentary technology being available.

MDC

Wes Groleau wrote:
> 
> A _good_ reason might be "it comes from Microsoft."  :-)
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Trying is the first step towards failure."
         --  Homer Simpson

======================================================================

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Georg Bauhaus]

Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote:
: How would you propose to get that capability with proportional fonts in 
: some manner that still allowed the source to be compilable?

You produce a piece of formatted code using a computer.
A computer programm will easily transform text written
in one formal language into a text written in another formal
language used in typesetting, be that RTF, GEN, XML, TeX,
or whatever :-)

Georg

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Marin David Condic]

Sure, I could always get some form of formatting for publication. Either 
A) I laboriously translate my Ada code via a word processor and tab 
stops and whatever else I may need or B) I laboriously write a program 
to reformat it into Postscript or something else that can be sucked up 
by some publishing tool while preserving my monospace alignment. (Still 
doesn't solve the problem of possibly wanting to make things align 
within identifiers, but perhaps that is not really necessary.)

The question is "How do I get that within my Ada code such that its 
still a compilable thing and is represented consistently by various 
IDEs?" I thought the idea was to have proportional fonts as part of the 
programming ritual and the objection was that monospace fonts make it 
easy to format code. If its handled all through the editor via some 
algorithm, it probably won't look the same across editors. If it is 
handled by embedding some formatting information in the code, it would 
have to be something standard so compilers could ignore it and all 
editors could handle it the same.

MDC


Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> 
> You produce a piece of formatted code using a computer.
> A computer programm will easily transform text written
> in one formal language into a text written in another formal
> language used in typesetting, be that RTF, GEN, XML, TeX,
> or whatever :-)
> 
> Georg


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
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                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Trying is the first step towards failure."
         --  Homer Simpson

======================================================================

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Georg Bauhaus]

Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote:
: Sure, I could always get some form of formatting for publication. Either 
: A) I laboriously translate my Ada code via a word processor and tab 
: stops and whatever else I may need or

(A) shouldn't have to be done when there is a parser for Ada :-)
Indeed with GNAT you can use -gnatt, to some extent, this could
be a starting point.

: B) I laboriously write a program 
: to reformat it into Postscript or something else that can be sucked up 
: by some publishing tool while preserving my monospace alignment. (Still 
: doesn't solve the problem of possibly wanting to make things align 
: within identifiers, but perhaps that is not really necessary.)

No, no, no, the alignment can be done (not overriden) by the
formatting program, either by respecting the space character count,
or by using an alignment algorithm using whatever fonts you have
chosen!  You type plain characters.  The PP program is Ada-aware,
and configurable.  The PP program makes sure that there is alignment,
if and how you want it.  No tabbing needed, no changes or additions
to source code, leave that to the computer :-)

So there is no need for: 

: The question is "How do I get that within my Ada code such that its 
: still a compilable thing and is represented consistently by various 
: IDEs?" I thought the idea was to have proportional fonts as part of the 
: programming ritual and the objection was that monospace fonts make it 
: easy to format code. If its handled all through the editor via some 
: algorithm, it probably won't look the same across editors.

Imagine you want to rename on identifier, possibly changing its
length in characters. With just "space character formatting"
you get into the usual typewriter-style trouble. With a computer
program to assist you if you want, in whatever stage, you don't
have to think about formatting when you write or change code.

Reminds me of the widespread use of spaces, tabs, and pressing
RETURN in place of using paragraph styles, automatic indenation,
automatic or forced page breaking, automatic keep-together features,
etc. that typesetting software and word processors have had for
some time know...


Georg

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Marin David Condic]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> 
> No, no, no, the alignment can be done (not overriden) by the
> formatting program, either by respecting the space character count,
> or by using an alignment algorithm using whatever fonts you have
> chosen!  You type plain characters.  The PP program is Ada-aware,

How does it know what fonts I have chosen? It either needs to do it on 
the fly or it needs to store that information with the program text. 
Same with possible variations in formatting style, etc. Either you 
rebuild it every time (and no possible consistencey between when done by 
my program and when done by yours.) or you have to store some 
information with the file (and then you need a convention for doing that.)



> 
> So there is no need for: 
> 
Yes there is - see above. Yes, you can write some formatting tool that 
might go do some default actions on Ada source text and it might look 
half-way nice, but the thing is, someone is going to quickly say "I want 
Times" or "I Want Arial" or I want "Bookman Old Style" - not to mention 
a wide range of possible formatting styles. Hence either the tool is 
extremely limited and fixed in what it does or the user has to specify 
options every time it is formatting some code, or you have to store 
formatting information with the code - especially if you want to 
transmit the code to someone else and have them see it the way you did it.

I'm not saying it can't be done - but if most Ada programmers wanted 
some kind of typesetting capability for their source code, it seems to 
make sense that the best way to do it would be with some kind of markup 
kept inside the code. That's basically the way most word processors do it.

> 
> Reminds me of the widespread use of spaces, tabs, and pressing
> RETURN in place of using paragraph styles, automatic indenation,
> automatic or forced page breaking, automatic keep-together features,
> etc. that typesetting software and word processors have had for
> some time know...


Ahhh, the Good Old Days! :-) I *like* plain-old-ASCII and the limited 
formatting it makes possible. Its simple. It works. And not everything 
needs to be gold-plated. For program source code, I find it quite 
adequate and of minimal fuss. For publishing a magazine, its 
insufficient - but I don't do that very often.

Case in point: Once upon a time, if someone wanted to send a memo around 
to the staff - they might have hand-scrawled it and xeroxed it and had 
it going around the office in 15 minutes. Now that same someone might 
spend hours organizing a memo, complete with clip art and graphics and 
other stuff to make it look really spiffy. It's a *memo*! Not an 
illuminated manuscript! The object of the game is to communicate the 
information quickly and inexpensively and yet word processing has 
probably made for way more wasted energy than we used to have in this 
area. You can no longer make a resume or a presentation without 
sophisticated typesetting and graphic arts. I think its overkill.

I'm sure there are ways of auto-formatting Ada source text and using 
proportional fonts, etc. I just don't think its necessarily very useful 
or something most programmers want to spend their time doing. Even 
plain-old-ASCII "pretty printers" have their weaknesses - they often 
don't format in the manner I personally would like or give you other 
sorts of mysery. (Like why is it GPS won't let me specify 4 spaces for 
indent instead of the default 3?) They can be useful, but they often are 
not the norm for many developers. Maybe there are too many elements of 
taste in formatting to make it possible to cater to everyone with a 
program? Maybe not all judgements about what looks good can be codified?

MDC


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Trying is the first step towards failure."
         --  Homer Simpson

======================================================================

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Georg Bauhaus]

Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote:
: 
: 
: Georg Bauhaus wrote:
:> 
:> No, no, no, the alignment can be done (not overriden) by the
:> formatting program, either by respecting the space character count,
:> or by using an alignment algorithm using whatever fonts you have
:> chosen!  You type plain characters.  The PP program is Ada-aware,
: 
: How does it know what fonts I have chosen? It either needs to do it on 
: the fly or it needs to store that information with the program text. 

No, there is a mapping from syntactical categories to fonts.
(And it is that mapping that you as a user can modify, plus
other parameters.)
For example, keywords in bold, identifiers in italics,
Symbols in a symbol/math font, etc., or everything in
a fixed width font, or ...


: Same with possible variations in formatting style, etc. Either you 
: rebuild it every time (and no possible consistencey between when done by 
: my program and when done by yours.) or you have to store some 
: information with the file (and then you need a convention for doing that.)

This is what (ISO-)standardised style sheet languages are about.
You cannot (ever) expect pointwise equal output from
different typesetting systems, but you can set up a
framework that will allow typesetters to predict the results,
and to make necessary adjustments (e.g. due to different papersizes).

It will also free the programmer from having to think about
formatting, at least if he/she sticks to reasonable convention,
like not chosing identifiers longer than about 80 characters.
 
:> 
:> So there is no need for: 
:> 
: Yes there is - see above. Yes, you can write some formatting tool that 
: might go do some default actions on Ada source text and it might look 
: half-way nice, but the thing is, someone is going to quickly say "I want 
: Times" or "I Want Arial" or I want "Bookman Old Style" - not to mention 
: a wide range of possible formatting styles.

Again, see above, and please leave the professional work of
typesetting to typesetting professionals. Programmers should
concentrate on programming. :-) Well they might have a word in that,
to preserve some originality, but they shouldn't have to decide
the details, and typesetters might know ways to fulfill an author's
wishes so that everyone will like it.


: I'm not saying it can't be done - but if most Ada programmers wanted 
: some kind of typesetting capability for their source code, it seems to 
: make sense that the best way to do it would be with some kind of markup 
: kept inside the code. That's basically the way most word processors do it.

I don't think so, you don't store compiler flags in source
code either. WordPerfect did have formatting switches in the text
some time ago, but even back then there was a strong suggestion to
not do that: mix text and format.

:> Reminds me of the widespread use of spaces, tabs, and pressing
:> RETURN in place of using paragraph styles, automatic indenation,
:> automatic or forced page breaking, automatic keep-together features,
:> etc. that typesetting software and word processors have had for
:> some time know...
: 
: 
: Ahhh, the Good Old Days! :-) I *like* plain-old-ASCII and the limited 
: formatting it makes possible. Its simple. It works.

Yes, but only if used in for typesetting on a monospace only
device.

: And not everything 
: needs to be gold-plated. For program source code, I find it quite 
: adequate and of minimal fuss. For publishing a magazine, its 
: insufficient - but I don't do that very often.

Ah, I had that in mind (Ada Letters).

: Case in point: Once upon a time, if someone wanted to send a memo around 
: to the staff - they might have hand-scrawled it and xeroxed it and had 
: it going around the office in 15 minutes.

Right, and soon there were conventions like marking sections
with a '*', for extracting tables of contents, jumping and
so on, which is now found in WiKis, demonstrating the
pros and cons of informal markup.

: You can no longer make a resume or a presentation without 
: sophisticated typesetting and graphic arts. I think its overkill.

Yes. But try
$ a2ps -p some_unit.ps some_unit.adb

I think the defaults have some drawbacks, but it is quick and
easy, for source code only printouts used for off screen studying.

: I'm sure there are ways of auto-formatting Ada source text and using 
: proportional fonts, etc. I just don't think its necessarily very useful 
: or something most programmers want to spend their time doing.

Yeah, programmers shouldn't in general have to do that,
but for publications a proper choice of fonts can be
useful. But that choice need not be done by the programmer.

:  Maybe there are too many elements of 
: taste in formatting to make it possible to cater to everyone with a 
: program? Maybe not all judgements about what looks good can be codified?

Maybe there are just too many programmers who think they are
competent typesetters? :-)

I think that as soon as you deviate from plain monospaced
text you will have to be a competent typesetter.
And maybe even when you don't.


Georg

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Colin Paul Gloster]

As suggested earlier in this thread, the appearance of misplaced
diacritics instead of characters which are not Latin letters in
"Ada Letters" is not the authors' fault judging from the perfect rendition
of "An Invitation to Ada 2005" authored by Pascal Leroy in the printing of
the December 2002 issue of "Ada User Journal" in contrast to the typical
misprints in its "Ada Letters" September 2003 version.

Re: ACM Ada Letters

[Hyman Rosen]

Colin Paul Gloster wrote:
> As suggested earlier in this thread, the appearance of misplaced
> diacritics instead of characters which are not Latin letters in
> "Ada Letters" is not the authors' fault judging from the perfect rendition
> of "An Invitation to Ada 2005" authored by Pascal Leroy in the printing of
> the December 2002 issue of "Ada User Journal" in contrast to the typical
> misprints in its "Ada Letters" September 2003 version.

Regardless of what software issues caused the misprints, it is certainly
the fault of the publishers of Ada Letters to allow such badly printed
issues to be sent to their subscribers.